Opinion | Executions in Myanmar, plight of Rohingya in Bangladesh reflect poorly on Asean diplomacy

As Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis deepens, Asean’s non-interference principle has become a barrier to safeguarding rights and freedoms

Asean needs to decide whether it is merely a trade body or an organisation bound by common values

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Myanmar citizens and supporters stage a rally outside the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok on July 26, in protest of the executions of pro-democracy activists by the military junta. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 1:30am, 31 Jul 2022

A year and a half after Myanmar’s military takeover, the country has carried out its first executions in decades. It announced on Monday that four men had been executed. Among them were a former National League for Democracy lawmaker and a pro-democracy activist, accused of aiding “terror acts” in a closed-door trial.

Myanmar’s governing military defended the executions as “justice for the people”, while the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has denounced them. A statement issued by Cambodia, the current Asean chair, described the use of the death penalty “just a week before the 55th Asean ministerial meeting” as “highly reprehensible” and damaging to regional efforts to establish peace in Myanmar.

Such a rebuke from Asean is rare. Although Myanmar’s military junta was at first prohibited from attending high-level Asean meetings, more recently this stance appears to have shifted. Indeed, the presence of junta representatives at the Asean Defence Ministers’ meeting in June has called into question Asean’s commitment to upholding the democratic rights of Myanmar’s population.

Asean has been criticised before for sidelining human rights in the pursuit of economic integration. In 2017, the 50th anniversary of the bloc’s founding, Teddy Baguilat, a board member of Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), called on the group to strengthen its rights framework: “We must push back against moves of autocrats and populist leaders to demonise human rights advocates and trivialise human rights issues”.

Among Asean member states, bilateral approaches to Myanmar have varied. Thailand, for example, has been more upfront in recognising the junta’s power; the outgoing Thai ambassador to Myanmar met Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in March.

As for achieving the Five-Point Consensus, a set of aims agreed upon last April by Asean members and Myanmar’s new junta leader to pull the country out of its post-coup crisis, Asean has little to show for itself. The bloc has not yet had a formal meeting with any members of the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), which represents the democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar. It has also come under scrutiny for being too tolerant of the junta, which has made minimal tangible progress itself in realising the five aims.